Squash, squash & more squash

Sunday, August 16, 2009

It's the age old summer dilemma...what to do with all the zucchini you have grown or been given. I see magazine articles, television segments & blogs about the many uses for zucchini. I recently read where a city declared "leave some zucchini on your neighbors front porch" day! I thought that was clever, but didn't really solve the problem. Sean & I have been splitting a box of local, organic produce with another couple every other week from a local company called Off the Vine. Yes, we have gotten a lot of squash, all different sorts of squash, but being that we split this with another couple, I haven't had too much. However, a few weeks ago a good friend of mine (the wife of the couple that we split the veggies with) & her son picked me a huge bag of yellow squash & cucumbers from the community garden in Calhoun, Georgia. I immediately started slicing the cucumbers & adding to jars of pickle juice that I had saved for just that purpose--what I call lazy "homemade" pickles; they are actually pretty tasty, however, you can only use the leftover juice for so long before it becomes diluted. But what to do with all that squash?

First, I fried some, which is very unusual at our house; even though I cook a lot of southern food, I very rarely fry anything. They were delicious! However, my eyes burned the rest of the day; I am assuming it had something to do with the temperature of the oil--not a good sign. This past week I was thinking of other ways to use some of the squash. I wondered that if I can make zucchini bread, why can't I make squash bread? So, I did & it was yummalicious! This is completely vegan & full of healthy flax seed! The batch in this picture has the nuts on top because I forgot to stir in the walnuts, so I just added them to the top. I also had some grated carrot leftover from making fresh rolls & threw them into the mix, added some nice color & extra nutrients!